


lament of the light.

by capfrye



Category: World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft - Various Authors
Genre: Gen, Sylvanas Windrunner (mentioned) - Freeform, Varok Saurfang (mentioned) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 13:43:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16556861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capfrye/pseuds/capfrye
Summary: Anduin would never forget the countless lives that had perished in the field of battle to protect him from the dangers that lurked in the world. His safety had been bought in blood and pain and suffering; that he could not put a stop to such an unfair exchange felt like he was betraying his people.Perhaps he would have been better off dead by Saurfang’s hand.------In which Anduin allows himself to mourn at last and finds unlikely counsel in a heart of iron.Spoilers for the Lost Honor cinematic.





	lament of the light.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a product of my being sad about Anduin on a daily basis and because he's honestly going to snap really bad one of these days. Again, spoilers for the Lost Honor cinematic.

      Despite being in company, Anduin Wrynn had never felt more alone.

      He stood at one end of the war table, listening but not truly processing the ongoing conversation between Genn and the prophet Velen. Advisors though they had been to the young king of the Alliance since the start of his reign, now they were nothing but strangers in Anduin's eyes; the notion, simultaneously grim and saddening, was a reminder of the shadows that had taken hold of his mind. His eyes drifted to Velen, the teacher and friend whom he considered the closest thing to family at this point, and the tiredness so deeply etched onto the lines of the draenei’s face. Genn was no different despite the vigor granted to him by his nature as both human and worgen but more striking than his exhaustion, however, was the eternally burning fire in his eyes, ever the more intense whenever he spoke about Sylvanas and her Horde.

      Her Horde. _My Horde._ The conversation with Saurfang still fresh in his mind, Anduin felt the tightness in his chest grow all the heavier and oppressive. Inner division plagued the Horde just as readily as it did the Alliance, and yet their strength only seemed to grow. The Alliance, on the other hand, felt like a castle of cards toppling before the unrelenting hurricane of adversity and the chaos it was bound to leave in its wake. _She wishes to see you divided,_ Saurfang had said mere moments after Anduin had left the door to his cell open, and the young Wrynn couldn’t help but mentally congratulate Sylvanas: she was succeeding, tearing them apart without even having to attack them all directly.

 _Only if you let her,_ Anduin told himself, but the attempt at raising his spirits fell flat. Saurfang’s hope that the Alliance would stop Sylvanas should have been an uplifting sentiment, but it only symbolized another weight upon his shoulders, another expectation for Anduin to meet. _Stop Sylvanas? With what force? How slim are our chances right now?_

      “Anduin?”

      The youth’s head snapped upwards with a jolt and he found Genn and Velen staring right at him, gentle concern on the draenei’s features. “We suggested returning to this conversation later, Your Majesty,” offered the prophet gently.

      Anduin nodded. “I agree.”

      Hesitation flashed briefly through Genn’s face. “Is something the matter?” he asked then.

      “No,” Anduin replied far more hastily than he intended, but he didn’t bother to correct himself. Genn, who had begun making to move closer to his side, stopped in his tracks. “If it’s alright,” he ventured after a moment of uncomfortable silence, “I will retire to my study now.” The choice of words left a sour taste in his mouth: those had been the words of a _boy_ , not a king, and certainly not the High King of the Alliance, but Anduin found he didn’t care. There was much, he noted, that lay beyond the realm of caring at the moment.

      The meeting was indeed postponed, Anduin making it abundantly clear that he should go undisturbed for the next few hours before leaving for his study. He needed to think, to put his thoughts in order, and perhaps even make sense of the foul mood that had seized him. His study, and his father’s before him, was an accurate reflection of Anduin’s inner turmoil. Upon the desk lay an assortment of letters and half-written documents, and a half-empty goblet of wine rested precariously close to the edge. Anduin felt a mix of amusement and disappointment flare within his chest: normally, he wouldn’t have allowed his usual order to deteriorate into chaos; now, he realized once again as he walked towards the chair and sat, he cared little.

      He took notice, as he always did, of the portrait of the late Varian looming behind him, the former king’s calm but resolute gaze forever held high and fixed forward. What he wouldn’t give to have his father with him now, if not for counsel then for sorely needed company. Anduin’s relationship with Varian was unpleasant for many years, tested by the strain of conflicting viewpoints and Varian’s more aggressive outlook on things, but it had healed in the years preceding the invasion of the Burning Legion. Had he not fallen to the countless demons upon the Broken Shore, perhaps the current political climate would not resemble a wildfire as much as it did. Indeed, were Varian still alive, many things would be different. The people of Stormwind would still have their beloved king, and Anduin would still have his father.

 _We have lost so much, and we stand to lose even more so._  The mournful thoughts he had thought kept to himself, Anduin had actually spoken into the cold air of the room; for the first time this evening, and possibly not the last, he was thankful nobody was there to listen. Anduin’s only company was Varian’s portrait and the specters that had so gleefully haunted him since the disaster the siege of Lordaeron had embodied. His hands closed around the arms of the chair so tightly his knuckles turned white. The wood dug hard into his skin and though it should have been painful, Anduin registered but a mere prickling sensation. He tried to will his jaw,  which he had been clenching up until now to relax, but to no avail.

      When something cold and wet fell upon his trousers, Anduin sucked in a harsh breath, startled. For the first time in many years, he was crying.

      His shoulders rose and fell in quick succession, the movements accompanied by the harsh and deep heaving of his chest. Anduin’s hands quickly rose to his eyes, wiping at his tears. To many they would be a sign of weakness. To others, irrefutable proof that the king was but a young man, still _human_ at heart despite the fortitude he showed in the face of adversity. Perhaps their presence would even be considered courageous by a small minority, for many would rather hold them back than shed them in a world that seemed to value steeliness over sentimentality. It mattered little to Anduin, however. Those tears, the flow of which he was unable to stem, reminded him of a very simple truth: he had yet to mourn those he had lost.

      His fingers buried in his hair and clamped down on his scalp so hard it hurt, his youthful face wracked with anguish and grief, Anduin Wrynn wept openly, paying little mind to whoever, if anyone, was listening. He doubled over, hiding his face behind his arms, quivering in the wake of the emotions he had acknowledged at last as he sobbed. He felt so small in the face of so many colossal tasks, abandoned and forsaken even by the Light in which he believed with such unwavering conviction. Azeroth was on its way to ruin, its lands and fields made bloody battlefields by an undying decades old war, its people scarred and brutalized by friend and foe alike. It mattered little to what race those people belonged to: what was truly important was that those lives were being lost by the hundreds, if not thousands, and that the two people that could put a stop to it _didn’t._ Sylvanas had made life her enemy, her determination to win forged into a blade as fiery as it was deadly. Clearly, she wouldn’t stop until they were all dead.

      Anduin could conscript as many lives into the war as he wanted but in the long run, every soul would be an addition to Sylvanas’ own forces. In the Banshee Queen’s hands, every living being had a second life, one she would grant without reprieve or hesitation if only to see the Alliance balk when pitted against those they had called friends and loved ones in life, and Anduin would be helpless to stop it. The thought brought sickening dread into the pit of his stomach, made his tears all the more numerous and uncontrollable, and the fear that he had so desperately tried to put behind him blanketed him at last, chilling him to the very marrow of his once-shattered bones.

      “I’m sending them to die,” Anduin said to nobody. “I’m sending them to _die_... and I’m helpless to stop it!” Alliance blood may stain Horde hands, but Anduin would never forget the countless lives that had perished in the field of battle to protect him from the dangers that lurked in the world. His safety had been bought in blood and pain and suffering; that Anduin could not put a stop to such an unfair exchange made him feel like he was betraying his people.

      Perhaps he would have been better off dead by Saurfang’s hand.

      What honor was there in survival when the price for it was thousands of lives? Better yet, what _was_ honor in dark days such as these? A commodity, an antique, a principle so many were all too willing to abandon if it guaranteed them victory and power, as if it were a detriment rather than an advantage. It made Anduin wonder how much lower they could all stoop.

      Anduin couldn’t quite tell when his tears had ceased and when his breaths had calmed into shaky gasps for air, just that he had grown quiet once more. The floodgates behind which he had kept his emotions had opened, giving release to months old exasperation and sorrow, and in their wake they had left some clarity of mind, as well as a vacuum. The young king felt it expand as it filled with anger that all but brought tears to his eyes again, but this time they didn’t fall.

      What honor was there in the deliberate hiding of the sins the Alliance had committed? Oh, how quick many had been to speak up against the Horde, but how high had the price for the Alliance’s own scheming been? There was much, Anduin knew, that he had not been privy to until he had taken the throne and leadership of the Alliance, and even now strings continued being pulled behind his back. Truly, as he and Valeera had agreed just a few short weeks before the disastrous Gathering, the amount of people Anduin could fully trust was decreasing by the second.

      Perhaps it was time to remedy that and find more of those he could trust.

      Anduin drew himself upright, wiped at his eyes with his sleeve, and slouched in his seat, crushed by the weight of exhaustion and unease. In his melancholy, he had found much to ponder, yet as it was, he feared thinking himself deeper into despair rather than _out_ of it. His bones ached and so did his head, eyes and heart, and thinking about the vastness of the keep and about the people that inhabited it made Anduin’s stomach lurch. He thought of who he could turn to now that his soul felt at numb and relative ease, unburdened by the weight of his turmoil. Genn shied away from the softer emotions and the possibility of being judged for what was essentially a repertoire of different options--from Anduin’s outburst to his reluctance to seek help and including the negative and intrusive thoughts his mind had dwelt in--was all too real. He trusted Velen just as much as the draenei himself trusted Anduin, but he wasn’t willing to revisit what ailed him just yet. Not only that, but the young king’s burdens paled in comparison to those that rested atop the prophet’s shoulders. That left only one other place in Azeroth that he could safely go to without fear of reprimand or judgment.

      He left his study as he had found it, made a brief and secretive stop by his quarters to wash his face, left a message detailing only his location with the captain of the guard, and left for the Netherlight Temple.

**Author's Note:**

> Me @ Blizzard: Let Anduin Wrynn rest challenge.
> 
> To be updated soon!


End file.
